Aiken

Jamaica's coach Connie Francis was 'excited' following the Sunshine Girls' 71-29 victory over Cook Islands in their opening game at the World Netball Championships in Auckland, New Zealand, yesterday.

The Girls, led by a Romelda Aiken's immaculate shooting performance, overcame a slow start before racing away to a comfortable win at the Trusts Stadium.

Aiken netted 49 goals from 53 attempts, with Simone Forbes 21/28 and Christine Solmon 1/2 completing the scoring.

Anne Andrews, on 15-22 shooting, Jacqueline Tate, 11-14, and Patti Te Huna 3-7, scored the goals for Cook Islands.

EXCITED WITH WIN

"Our team is very happy for the victory. We are very excited that we were able to execute and deliver a good game. We started out a bit shaky as we lost many of our centre passes. We worked doubly hard and got better throughout the game," Francis said.

"We expected nothing less than a good performance from the team. We were more than capable of executing the task," she added.

"Everybody played well. It was a good team effort. The defence team played very well. We have had to put on the pressure from early in the competition to be strong contenders for the trophy, especially in our defence," she pointed out.

Despite the success, Francis says there's room for improvement.

"There's a lot we can take from the game. Most important was our style, we have to be able to take the ball early in the game. We didn't do well early, but I thought we got our game together."

The Cook Islands were somewhat competitive in the first quarter as Jamaica started to build its advantage with a 14-9 lead.

That provided the momentum for the Sunshine Girls to take control in the second quarter and power away to a 36-16 half-time advantage over the No. 11-ranked team.

Finishing strongly, Jamaica maintained their dominance after going into the third quarter break at 55-23.

Jamaican defenders Nicole Aiken and Kasey Evering and goal shooter Romelda Aiken helped to propel the Sunshine Girls to victory.

RANKING

The Sunshine Girls, who are ranked at number three in the world, were down to play their second match against Fiji at 8:10 p.m. Monday (12:10 a.m. Jamaica time).

"We're fully prepared to take on Fiji. Our first match against the Cook Islands was a good build-up for this match," Francis said.

Their third game against Singapore will be played on Tuesday (10:00 p.m. tonight, local time).